Change Isn't a Bad Thing
by Graycalls
Summary: Just because Megatron and the Maximals left, doesn't mean that they ceased to exist. Vignettes in the life and times of a raggity band of Predacons, left to fend for themselves on primordial earth. Reposting of old work, will be updated as life allows.
1. Chapter 1

The wave hit them, sending Scorponok flying into Terrorsaur, and the two of them tumbling off their hover pads, tangled in each other, and shocked, the heat and pressure of the lava sweeping over them before Terrorsaur had even thought about using his thrusters, the last sight of them Terrorsaur's hand, stretched above the lava, reaching for help.

* * *

Inferno ran slightly ahead of Quickstrike in what he refused to think of as 'retreat', as another failure to fulfil the Queen's orders, this time not even against those accused Maximals, but instead against the organics, of all things to loose against. As they finally got out of the throwing range, he saw what was either the best, or worst sight in his life.

The best, as it was his Queen, rising high above them in the colony that he had gone to capture, the sign of their colony's power blatant across the sky above.

The worst, because his Queen had turned the cannons of the-colony-in-the-sky on them, on the organic's colony behind them, and, as the blast came at them, and as he threw himself over Quickstrike in an instinctive motion to protect his colony-mates over himself, he wondered if they were really that inconsequential to the Royalty, that he was able to kill them without a second thought, or a moment's pause to allow them time to get out of the way.

* * *

A time later, a long, hard, painful time later, Scorponok and Terrorsaur were able to pull themselves all of the way out of the lava, collapsing in pure exhaustion the cycle they were completely free from the heat, self repairs, long overtaxed, finally able to cycle onto active repair, rather than just playing 'keep away' with their essential systems.

* * *

Far away, near the budding protohuman colony, trapped within the charred and twisted remains, two sparks flickered dimly.

* * *

And further away than that, Waspinator buzzed over the treeline, lost and alone, unwilling to continue on by himself, but not quite sure how to stop.


	2. Chapter 2

"That's it!" Scorponok bellowed, surprising not only the others in the cave they had found, but himself. He faltered at the shocked and, in some cases, numb, looks sent his way, but shook it off quickly, irritation forcing him past his indecision. "This isn't working. Not in the slightest. We can't live like this. I can't be the only one doing anything around here." Scorponok felt ridiculous, but the time in the lava had changed him, where before he would have faltered, faded into the background, not have yelled in the first place, now Scorponok was just over it, as what was the worse they were going to do? Throw him in the lava again? "Terrorsaur, you and Waspinator are coming with me to the crash sites, we're looking for anything usable, anything."

Scorponok ignores Terrorsaur's half protest, and Waspinator's fierce glare, he clearly wasn't recovering by laying around, so if nothing was happening through Waspinator's methods, Scorponok was going to put the lot of them on his, work them all until they can't think about what they are working to avoid. "Inferno, Quickstrike, our fuel supplies are getting low, you two are going to go hunt for more while Terrorsaur, Waspinator, and I are gone." He glares around, daring them to complain any more. "Understood? Good." He turns, grabbing the bag he had scavenged from the wreckage of their ship, after it had been blown up by... something. Scorponok still hadn't gotten most of the story of what had happened after his and Terrorsaur's imprisonment.

He moved out of the cave, Waspinator and Terrorsaur moving slowly and sulkily behind him, and Inferno and Quickstrike slowly moving out in the opposite direction, headed further out into the forest, rather than towards the desert.

It was for their own good.


	3. Chapter 3

Scorponok skittered into the cave they had made their own, dragging a rather large bundle behind him. A bundle that looked suspiciously unlike what he had gone out to get, due to being, well, metallic rather than the organic grasses he had gone out to get.

"What the slag is that?" Terrorsaur rasped at him the moment he saw that what Scorponok was dragging behind him wasn't, in fact, the bedding materials.

"One of the fleshling planes crashed, there's a lot of salvageable parts left," he shrugs out of the harness, transforming into his root mode to help Inferno unload the sled, sending him a short, thankful smile as he did so. "I'm headed back, once this is unloaded, and Terrorsaur?" He looks at him as he carries the pile of metal parts to the small but growing pile Inferno had started. "You're staying to sort the parts." He talked over the flyer's screech of indignation, not so much ignoring it, as knowing that if he didn't Terrorsaur was going to rant at him about why he should be the obvious choice for the next scavenging trip, "You need to fully recover, your wing isn't going to heal if you fly on it!"

Waspinator silenced Terrorsaur's oncoming tirade with a short, "Wazzpinator will stay with Terry-bot."

Scorponok nodded at him thankfully, stepping around Quickstrike on his return trip to the sled, "Inferno and Quickstrike are coming with me, I didn't see any signs of a survivor, but that doesn't mean there wasn't one." Scorponok finished unloading, and, as Quickstrike took the last load over to the pile, transformed and slipped back into the harness, "This'll take us a while, give us a few megacycles before coming after." He left the cave first, moving quickly towards the crash sight, Inferno following behind with another sled, and Quickstrike taking rear guard.

It took them a quarter of a megacycle to get there, but by the time they had arrived, they already had some rubble on the sleds, as Quickstrike had been picking up bits of the plane that had broken off on the trees as it had fallen. Quickly after arrival, they fell into the almost familiar job of taking apart the plane, taking anything that looked useful, as even the completely scrapped parts would be good, even if only as a source of wire, or just scrap metal. It would take them several trips, but eventually they would have most of the plane back at their base, leaving only what was truly too scrapped to be used.

* * *

The pilot of the the crashed plane, Christopher Stevens, was not, in fact, dead. Nor was he unconscious. He had been thrown from the plane in the crash, and he had awakened in a nearby tree, bruised, battered, sore, but, miraculously, unharmed. For now, anyway. he had been flying over the Amazon Jungle when his plane had gone down, flying the return of taking a group of missionaries to their new homes in the area. It was a routine trip, was supposed to be anyway, but...

Something had glitched on the way back, and he had lost control of the plane. He had been able to make the crash at a better angle, but it was still a crash. Once he had regained consciousness, he had tried, and he was blaming this on grogginess, to use his satellite phone (his wife had insisted) to call for help.

It had worked.

Not quite one to look a gift horse in the mouth, he had quickly contacted the local authorities, and they had told him to get in a tree, as high as he could, and as near to the crash sight as he could, and that they would send a helicopter to pick him up, as well as for him to stay on the line as long as possible for them to know when they were getting close.

He had expected to see several things, spiders, birds, the usual jungle animals. He was well prepared with a piece of the plane's fuselage to defend himself against most anything that would come near the crash site.

What he hadn't expected to see, was a giant scorpion, a giant ant, and a giant thing come at his plane, two of which with what looked to be home made sleds attached to them. Once they had gotten close to the crash site, they had changed, turned into these humanoid figures that quickly started disassembling his plane!

Breathlessly, he started describing the sight to the woman on the other side of the line, who was... less than believing. In fact, he overheard someone ordering for medical support to be found and brought to the helipad, as he may be hallucinating due to an injury from the crash. Less than pleased at this, he started describing everything about the creatures he saw, occasionally pausing to say that he just didn't have this kind of imagination, damnit! The only thing he didn't describe, although he should probably should have, was the kiss that the ant-thing and the scorpion-thing shared halfway through the process, although by that point he had started to record the sight on the video function.

The creatures, and almost all of his plane, were gone by the time the rescuers had found him.

His phone was confiscated by the American government on landing on American soil.

* * *

The plane stooped to a decent over the airport, and Chris sighed, leaning back in his seat. _Home_. He was finally home and he could stop thinking about those... monsters, he supposed would be the best word, but a small part of his mind insisted that couldn't be the truth, not if that kiss had meant anything.

He was about to start in on another round of debate with himself, chasing the few facts he knew around in his head- but the sudden slight jolt of the plane landing pushed the thoughts out of his head, and replaced them with ones of home, his wife, dinner... He got to his feet, grabbing his bag as he did so. He waited for the plane to finish coasting into the hanger, and opened the door, hopping out into his home port. He dropped his bag and stretched, taking in a deep breath of air as he did so. Damn, it was good to be home.

He came out of his stretch, and was about to grab his bag again, when a voice rang out, "You won't be needing that." He turned, startled. He hadn't noticed anyone else, but there they were, two men in black suits rounding the front of the plane. "Special Agent Monrow," the first man flashed a badge before continuing, "you'll need to come with us."

All Chris could do was gape at them, astounded at the apparent living cliches standing in front of him.

* * *

AN: That's the last of the old stuff. May or may not continue, just wanted to crosspost this somewhere.


End file.
